“ No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.” 

1 John 4:12-16

Yesterday I posed the idea that, as people, we tend to look for love in the same way that we prefer to express love. In our human relationships, this can cause us to feel unloved at times. Similarly, because we cannot see God and often don’t experience His love in our preferred method – what I wouldn’t give some days to feel a physical hug from the Father! – we can fall prey to the false belief that God does not love us.

However, yesterday we started debunking that belief by examining how, even though we cannot see God, we can look at His pattern of provision in our lives as evidence of His great love for us.

Today, let’s build on that truth about God and His love with more truth by examining another one of His names: Jehovah Mekoddishkem.

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Jehovah Mekoddishkem: The Lord Who Sanctifies

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Jehovah Mekoddishkem appears twice in the Bible: Leviticus 20:8 and Exodus 31:13.

“Keep my statutes and do them; I am the Lord who sanctifies you.” – Leviticus 20:8

“Say to the Israelites, ‘You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come, so you may know that I am the Lord, who makes you holy.” – Exodus 31:13

With this name, God shows us that He wants His people to be set apart from the world, to be holy, and that He alone is the One who can sanctify His people. 

What does this name mean for us?

Sweet friend, in the Old Testament sanctification involved being physically set apart. The Sabbath was set aside as a special day to focus on God and rest in His presence. God’s tabernacle was His holy house, set apart for Him (which is part of why Jesus was so upset about the money changers doing their business in His Father’s house). Old Testament sanctification was tied to frequent sacrifice and to good hygiene, bathing and avoiding unclean things (like touching the dead or eating certain foods). 

In the New Testament, we see a change in the process of sanctification.

The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! – Hebrews 9:13-14 (NIV)

God is very clear that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). Before Christ gave Himself as a sacrifice for us, God’s people experienced a nearly endless cycle of animal sacrifice. Sacrificing countless animals each day but never being fully clean.

It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. – Hebrews 10:4

Christ’s sacrifice cleanses not only our bodies but our minds and hearts from uncleanliness.

For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. – Romans 6:9-10

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. – 2 Corinthians 5:21

Dear heart, our God is the Lord Who Will Provide and the Lord Who Sanctifies. Our God loves us so much that He provided His one and only Son Jesus to free us from ceremonial sacrifices that had to be repeated frequently, from a perpetual cycle of trying to get outwardly clean. Our Savior loves us so much that He died once for all so that we can be sanctified, cleaned from the inside out, set apart as God’s people. 

Pray, thanking God for being Jehovah-Jireh, the Lord Will Provide, and for being Jehovah Mekoddishkem, the Lord Who Sanctifies.

Praise God for His loving care and provision for you, for a new name in Christ, for His fulfillment of a lifetime of earthly promises and an eternity of heavenly promises. 

Petition God to help you become more aware of how He loves you through His provision (physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual) and how He loves you by setting you apart, by making a way through Jesus Christ for you to be sanctified.